AMERICA AND THE WEST LEAD THE WAY TO THE BOTTOM
The good news is that there are more countries managing their economies in a fiscally responsible way than there were two years ago. Fiscally responsible means keeping average annual deficits less than average annual economic-growth rates, keeping net debt from exceeding one-third of gross domestic product, and maintaining a relatively small government. The bad news is that most of the world's biggest economies, including that of the United States, are getting deeper and deeper in debt as a result of excessive spending, and will ultimately have to pay the price. The chart below gives the details. They are not pretty for us nor for most of the West.
OUR FUTURE OF BEING LESS CROWDED AND HAVING MORE NATURE TO ENJOY
Most everyone has seen the nature documentaries of Sir David Attenborough and is familiar with his name. Publicizing his imminent new series about the evolution of animals, Sir David said in an interview last week that he thought a reduction in human population during this century is impossible and "we're lucky to be living when we are, because things are going to get worse." People will look back in another 100 years "at a world that was less crowded, full of natural wonders, and healthier." His is a common view. He longs for people to enjoy the open spaces and abundant herds of game that he has been fortunate enough to see. To that end he thinks it vital that there should be fewer of us. I would now passionately disagree with the two premises of his argument. It's actually quite likely, rather than impossible, that population will be falling by the end of this century and it is also quite likely that the people alive then will have lots more wilderness to explore and wildlife to admire than today. The facts that show this and disprove Sir David are fascinating.
COLORADO DISASTER — A HARBINGER OF THE DEMOCRATS’ FUTURE
The good news for former State Senate President John Morse of Colorado Springs and former State Sen. Angela Giron of Pueblo - both Democrats - is their place in history is now secure. They're the first legislators in Colorado ever to be recalled. Despite outspending their opponents at least 6 to 1, Mr. Morse and Ms. Giron lost in districts Democrats should win handily. Obama won them last year by 21 and 19 points respectively last year. Mr. Morse lost because Democrats in his district didn't turn out, and Republicans did. More Democrats than Republicans voted in Ms. Giron's district. Her problem was so many of them voted to throw her out. It was chiefly the votes of blue collar Hispanics that did her in. More recall petitions were signed by Democrats and Independents combined than by Republicans. Here's why this is such really bad news for Democrats nationally.
HALF-FULL REPORT 09/13/13
The United States has suffered a huge diplomatic defeat, with ominous consequences that will reverberate for decades. Yet I feel relieved, because the alternatives were worse. * * * * The silver lining in this cloud is that if America can survive the next 40 months, the odds are the America 3.0 Jack Wheeler described here will be ushered in on January 20, 2017. * * * * Despite spending about 8 times as much as their opponents, two Democratic state senators lost recall elections in Colorado. This has ominous implications for gun grabbers and Democrats nationwide. * * * * Despite liberal smears, conservatives won landslide victories in Australia Saturday and Norway Monday. **** At its convention in Los Angeles Thursday, the AFL-CIO passed a strongly worded resolution against Obamacare. * * * * Syria may mean curtains for John McCain's sidekick.
PUTIN THE PRO WIPES THE FLOOR WITH OUR AMATEUR PRESIDENT
Members of Congress -- spooked because their constituents oppose intervening in Syria's civil war, and alarmed by the president's inept handling of the crisis -- were about to vote down the resolution he tardily asked for to authorize military strikes. It would have been a humiliating defeat for Barack Hussein Obama. Then Russian President Vladimir Putin tossed him a lifeline, which Mr. Obama went for like a trout to a fisherman's lure. "Putin openly despises your president," Russian political analyst Andrei A. Piontovsky told the New York Times. Why would he help Mr. Obama out of a jam? Because Putin knows Mr. Obama is so vain, he'd be more likely to act to protect his own reputation than to protect America's. This of course is exactly what has happened -- and Zero is so clueless he hasn't figured out yet the extent to which he has been humiliated.
THE NSA IS THE EYE OF SAURON
[Note: Paul Rosenberg, has spent many years trying to protect Internet users from unjustified surveillance by groups like the NSA. Many TTPers subscribe to his Virtual Private Network (VPN) called - for reasons known only to him - Cryptohippie, to avoid tracking by the snoops. I never go online without it. Here Paul discusses the latest revelation of unconstitutional NSA Orwellian fascism. -JW] On September 5th, Glenn Greenwald, Ed Snowden and others revealed that the NSA was able to break the vast majority of encryption used on the Internet. You can find the story here or here, and commentary by cryptographer Bruce Schneier here. In the NSA documents, ordinary Internet customers are referred to as "adversaries." We're all perps now. If all Internet users are "adversaries," do you really think anyone is safe? Forget about the US Constitution; it's a non-factor now. This is just the latest example of people who are drunk on power and don't care about the principles on which this country was founded. The NSA and the entire US/UK "security" apparatus is a gigantic drunken beast. The operators are arrogant and untouchable. The reality is, the system is beyond broken, no matter what kind of happy talk you hear on TV. Here's what this means to you.
CONGRESS MUST NOT BE AS NAÃVE AND UNWISE AS THE PRESIDENT
Leaders who cannot see beyond Stage One often cause great harm. Unfortunately for the United States and the world, President Obama continues to exhibit a strange naïveté and a lack of wisdom about domestic and foreign problems -- Syria just being the latest example. The famous Russian "reset" was one of the first policies that later turned into an embarrassment. The president shows compassion when he talks about those who were gassed in Syria, and he shows compassion when he speaks about minorities, the young and those who have the fewest opportunities. Yet by placing additional burdens on job creation, many of his tax and regulatory policies have led to the biggest increases in unemployment among those he says he cares most about. A compassionate speech is no substitute for sound action. A wiser president would realize his policies are not working and reverse course. Wise people learn from their mistakes, while the unwise double down.
FROM 9/11 TO 3.0
On this 12th anniversary of the Moslem Atrocity of 9/11, our problems seem worse than ever. The federal government has metastasized into a cancer that many consider terminal for our country's existence. Tens of millions of us have given up hope of ever finding a job again - while millions more just starting out in their twenties have never had a job at all. The problems seem so numerous and insuperable that many of us have given up on America's future. Most horrifying is that this is what Zero wants, the destruction of America's future is his goal. The more we suffer, the more he gloats, laughing in our faces as he plays another round of golf and Mrs. Zero is treated as royalty, going off on another multi-million dollar vacation. And all the while, his corrupt corporatist cronies, like those at Solyandra, make hundreds of millions. So it is only appropriate that we commemorate this day by committing ourselves to creating a new America that will conquer the Curse of Zero, and reclaim our future of optimism. The good news is that this creation is already well underway. There's a blueprint for it and the foundation is being laid. Here it is.
ARE CHEMICAL WEAPONS REALLY UNIQUELY BAD?
Syria is thought to have at least 1,000 tons of chemical munitions. They loom large in the debate over whether to launch air strikes against the regime of dictator Bashar Assad. Larger than they ought to. Chemical munitions -- along with nuclear bombs and biological agents -- are classified as "weapons of mass destruction." This is deceptive. To lump poison gas with nukes and bugs is like comparing a high school football team to the Pittsburgh Steelers or the Green Bay Packers. They don't really belong in the same league. The Germans, in the second battle of Ypres in 1915, were the first to use lethal chemical weapons. They were used extensively by both sides for the remainder of World War I, but hardly ever since. This has less to do with humanitarian restraint on the part of the combatants -- or fear of retaliation in kind -- than it does with the fact that chemical weapons aren't very effective. Here's why:
IT’S THE BELIEF THAT STRESS IS BAD FOR YOU THAT’S BAD FOR YOU
In a great TED talk, Kelly McGonigal of Stanford University revealed a new finding about stress. We used to think that too much stress could be very bad for you. In fact, people with high levels of stress have a 43% higher probability of dying than those with lower levels of stress. That sounds pretty bad, doesn't it? But it turns out that it's not the stress itself that'll kill you. Those with high levels of stress who believed that stress is bad for you indeed have a 43% higher probability of dying than those with lower levels of stress, but those with just as high levels of stress who believed that stress was a normal and healthy response of their body to the challenges of life were actually healthier than those with lower levels of stress. In other words, it's not stress, but the belief that stress is bad for you that will kill you.